Controversial Israeli Film Foxtrot Wins the Silver Lion at Venice Film Festival

Nationalist Israeli Minister of Culture Miri Regev last week slammed Foxtrot. She said that the state will not fund films that “slander the name of Israel."

Israeli movie,”Foxtrot”, directed by Shmulik Maoz, has won Silver Lion award at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday. Nationalist Israeli Minister of Culture Miri Regev last week said that the state will not fund films that “slander the name of Israel.”

Foxtrot is an allegory about fate and peoples inability to direct their fate.

The film opens with a wealthy couple from Tel Aviv. They are being informed their soldier son has died in the line of duty. The film later explores the way trauma scars people’s lives and communities, and undulate across generations.

likewise his 2009 movie, “Lebanon”, which won the Golden Lion in Venice, Foxtrot is also rooted in the Maoz’s own life story. His eldest daughter’s brush with death when she missed a bus that later blew up in a terrorist attack.

Although the honor of being placed the second place at the renowned film festival, as expected, Maoz was not welcomed by Minister of Culture Regev who already criticised the director and his movie for the way he shows off Israeli army, still a hallowed institution in the country.

Regev slammed the film once more upon its success in Venice. “I find it outrageous that Israeli auteurs are contributing to inciting Israel’s younger generation against the world’s most moral army slinging lies under the guise of artistic expression.” she said.

Guillermo del Toro’s monster thriller The Shape of Water won the top prize, the Golden Lion.